Walk Away
by LaPaige
Summary: He watches her walk away. It’s sunny and he laughs because isn’t it ironic that on one of the worst days of his life the sky is clear. Shaitlyn.


**This is very, very different from my usual style, but I kind of like it. I hope you all do too. I haven't posted anything in a while because of the site being down and I never really felt in the mood to write anything. That and I've been watching House a lot ... but anyway, I really hope you enjoy this (:**

He watches her walk away. It's sunny and he laughs because isn't it ironic that on one of the worst days of his life the sky is clear. She's one of his best friends. Or _was. _The reality hits in then, when he starts talking in past tense. It's his fault – there's no trying to deny it, and before she's even turned the corner he misses her.

_"I can't' do this Shane!" Caitlyn is yelling and her hair's a mess but Shane doesn't notice because all he can see is the way her eyes are glinting with tears. He wants nothing more to hug her and tell her everything is going to be fine, but they both know that's far from the truth._

"Caitlyn I'm sor-" He starts to speak but she cuts him off, her voice quieter but hurting him further.

"You can't be sorry when you don't know what for, Shane." She looks upset, hurt and angry all at the same time and Shane feels extremely helpless as he watches her break down. He awkwardly hugs her, half hoping she'd push away so he wouldn't feel so bad about this, but his other half hoping she would cling to him like life support.

_She takes the second option as she hugs him back, sobbing into his shirt. He doesn't move, knowing that maybe this would be the last time he gets to hug her. The thought makes his eyes prick with tears but he scolds himself for being stupid - though somehow the sensible part of him (the part that at this moment he could really do without) is telling him that he isn't being stupid._

He waits on that corner for more than five minutes and Nate would probably have something to say about that but to be honest (which he tries to be) he really doesn't care about Nate when his best friend has just walked out of his life and he can't do anything about it. It's a new feeling to him – to be helpless. Normally he takes control of his life, and he's used to that, but not today.

Shane shakes his head after standing in that exact place for the seventeenth minute. Wishful thinking will get him nowhere, he realises, so he turns and walks away. She isn't coming back – not now, not ever.

For the next hour he isn't Shane– he's a zombie. He still laughs and jokes with his friends (though they aren't Caitlyn) but his own voice sounds strange to him, like he isn't really there. His friends notice, of course, but they don't say anything. _Caitlyn would._

He knows he shouldn't keep thinking about her but it' hard so in the end he gives up and he cries. The last time he cried was when his dad told him he didn't agree with his singing career and stopped speaking to him. That's when he realises just how much Caitlyn meant to him. And yet he still can't do anything about it.__

Lunch times are the worst, he soon finds out.

"Shane, are you okay?" Shane looks at Jason (_your other best friend, remember?) _and nods. He forgets that Jason cares about him, he forgets that lying is bad and, most of all; he forgets that Caitlyn isn't there and glances up at her old seat, hoping to see her. His heart breaks a little when he can't see her familiar smile. The smile he hasn't seen in so long.

"You don't look fine." Ella pipes up and he looks at her, biting his tongue because yelling at Ella is not going to cure anything, no matter how tempting it sounds to just yell and scream and cry.

"I am." He doesn't know if he says this to convince himself or to convince them. Both, probably.

"You aren't fine." Mitchie says, though when he turns his gaze to her she's looking at her tray and not meeting his eyes and that's so unlike Mitchie that for a brief moment he's not sure if it was actually her who spoke, but then she looks up and her eyes explain everything. She's concerned. This throws hi m a little and he looks around at his friends and see's the same concern in each of their faces – painting a picture that Shane doesn't want to see.__

"I AM fine." He says it with more force and shocks even himself at his voice.

"Well sorry for caring." Mitchie snaps back, and her attitude changes to one he isn't familiar with. His heart sinks as guilt rushes over him.

"Mitch –" He realises his mistake and says her name but when she turns to look at him he doesn't want to say he's sorry because it's wrong to lie, so he just bows his head and listens to her retreating footsteps.

He leaves after a few seconds without another word, thankful that they don't call him back.

He tries calling her once but it rings and rings and nobody answers and he thinks that maybe she's ignoring him, so he doesn't try again. He writes a letter to her as well but he never sends it. Instead he rips it up into tiny pieces and throws it out the window and it looks to him like that it is his heart, not paper, that's ripped up and floating to the ground.

He writes a lot of songs about her but stashes them away. He doesn't sing them, not to Nate, Jason, Mitchie or even to himself. Words are meaningless when the person you want to say them to isn't there and he knows this only too well.

Shane decides that what he can't stand is the glances. Mitchie gives him sympathetic looks and he tries not to glare because he knows she's only trying to be helpful. She doesn't know what it feels like but he doesn't say this because hurting her feelings isn't something he wants to do twice. Ella's looks are somewhere between sadness and guilt.

He doesn't know what she feels guilty about and to be honest he doesn't want to know.

Nate's glances are harder to decipher and he finally comes to the conclusion that its worry. He doesn't want Nate to be worried about him but it's pointless saying this aloud because it won't stop anything, especially emotion. So once more he stays quiet.

Jason's glances are the hardest of all. Shane doesn't look at him because even though he never expected it, Jason is the hardest to face.

Even though, a month later, Jason is the one to finally change his mind.

"You need to go and find her." He says one day when they're sitting in silence.

Shane ignores him at first but then he thinks that maybe his friend is right so he nods to himself. Jason accepts this and says nothing more about it but the next day, when his friend isn't at the meeting with the record company, he smiles to himself.

Shane finds her walking on the streets in her home town and when he sees her after all these weeks it almost makes him run away but he doesn't. He watches her for a few minutes and if it wasn't for her finally seeing him and meeting his eye he probably would have stayed there for much longer. When he meets her eye something happens between them but Shane doesn't know what it is.

"Shane." He doesn't hear her say it but she mouths it and he nods.

"Hey." He mouths back as if this is natural and he hasn't got a three hour train to see her (and debated on running away without saying a word).

She moves towards him and he watches her face carefully. When she reaches him it's silent. They don't say anything and it's killing him because he just wants to hug her and hold her and make her come back with him. Instead he just waits. For what he isn't sure, but he does it anyway.

"Shane, why did you come here?" She finally asks, sighing. He see's sadness on her face and he swears his heart just broke for the third time.

"I've been thinking." He states, watching her carefully. She opens her mouth, probably to retort with a comeback, like the old Caitlyn would, but at the last second she must have changed her mind because her mouth closes and she nods at him, urging him to continue.

"I miss you. No, that's an underestimate. I need you, Caitlyn. I missed you so much and I just ... I wasn't the same. I don't know if you felt like that but please, Caitlyn, come back." He says it in one breath and when he finishes he looks at the ground and closes his eyes because maybe, just maybe, he's dreaming. When he feels her fingers on his chin though he knows he isn't.

She's silent so he looks up to check she hasn't run off. His eyes meet Caitlyn's and he watches her smile and suddenly he feels whole again.

**Review, please? Thank you.**


End file.
